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A Vision of Nature

The attributes of God are revealed within every created thing. “Nature,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world.”1 It is the embodiment of God’s name, “the Creator.”2

‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us that “The world, indeed each existing being, proclaims to us one of the names of God”.3 Within every atom “are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent testimony to the revelation of that most great Light”.4

“[E]very time I turn my gaze to Thine earth,” Bahá’u’lláh addresses God, “I am made to recognize the evidences of Thy power and the tokens of Thy bounty. And when I behold the sea, I find that it speaketh to me of Thy majesty, and of the potency of Thy might, and of Thy sovereignty and Thy grandeur. And at whatever time I contemplate the mountains, I am led to discover the ensigns of Thy victory and the standards of Thine omnipotence…”5

The Bahá’í Writings describe nature as an organic whole whose various systems and processes operate by ordained laws and principles.

“Reflect upon the inner realities of the universe, the secret wisdoms involved, the enigmas, the interrelationships, the rules that govern all. For every part of the universe is connected with every other part by ties that are very powerful and admit of no imbalance…”6

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has described the gradual growth and development of all beings as “the universal divine organization and the natural system. The seed does not at once become a tree; the embryo does not at once become a man; the mineral does not suddenly become a stone. No, they grow and develop gradually and attain the limit of perfection.”7

Progress, He has said in another passage, is the “expression of spirit in the world of matter.”8 Spiritual truths are expressed at every level of creation, and each new degree adds to the capacities of the level below it. In the mineral kingdom, for example, spirit is expressed through the power of cohesion; in the vegetable kingdom, through the power of growth and reproduction; in the animal kingdom, through the power of the senses.

In the human kingdom, the spirit finds expression through the powers of the mind. While possessing the powers of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, human beings have the unique capacity to imagine, think, understand, and speak.